Maestro Pavel Kogan’s career has spanned over 40 years and five continents and
has led him to becoming one of the most respected and widely known Russian
conductors of our time. In 2011 the Maestro’ name went into the list of ten
greatest conductors of the XX century, made by an authoritative British
Classical TV channel.

He was born into a distinguished musical
family – his parents are legendary violinists Leonid Kogan and Elizaveta Gilels
and his uncle is the inimitable pianist Emil Gilels. From an early age Maestro
Kogan’s artistic development was divided between conducting and violin. He was
granted special permission to study both disciplines at the same time which was
an extreme rarity in the Soviet Union.

In 1970 eighteen-year-old
Pavel Kogan, a violin pupil of Yuri Yankelevich at the Moscow Conservatory, won
1st prize in the Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki. Thereafter he appeared
regularly as a violinist in concerts around the world. In 2010 a panel of judges
has been elected to decide on the best conqueror in the competition’s 45-years
history for the Helsingin Salomat newspaper. And by unanimous resolution of the
jury Maestro Kogan was named the absolute winner.

As a conducting
pupil of Ilya Musin and Leo Ginsburg, in 1972 the young Maestro gave his debut
with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra and subsequently focused more on
conducting. In the years that followed he conducted the leading Soviet
orchestras both at home and on tour abroad at the invitation of Mravinsky,
Kondrashin, Svetlanov and Rozhdestvensky.

In 1988, as a conductor
of the Bolshoi Opera, Kogan opened the season with a new production of Verdi’s
La Traviata. That same year he became the head of the Zagreb Philharmonic
Orchestra.

Since 1989 Pavel Kogan has been the Music Director and
Chief Conductor of the eminent Moscow State Symphony Orchestra (MSSO), building
it into one of Russia’s most widely known and highly acclaimed
orchestras.

From 1998-2005 he served as principal guest conductor
of the Utah Symphony Orchestra.

Pavel Kogan has recorded countless works with the MSSO
and other ensembles, which became a major contribution to the world’s musical
culture. Many of his albums have garnered great acclaim from critics and
audiences alike. Gramophone called Kogan’s Rachmaninoff cycle (Symphonies 1, 2,
3, Symphonic Dances, “Isle of the Dead,” “Vocalize & Scherzo”) “…sparkly,
strongly communicative Rachmaninoff... vibrant, soulful and
involving.”

Maestro Kogan was awarded the State Prize of the
Russian Federation for his performance of the complete symphonies and vocal
cycles of Gustav Mahler. In 2014 Kogan was appointed Commandeur de L'Ordre des
Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture, for his contribution to
music in France. He is a member of the Russian Academy of Arts, recipient of the
“Order of Merit” of Russia and of the title “Peoples’ Artist of Russia” among
other Russian and overseas awards.